August 28, 2020

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 28.08.2020, 13:55

COVID-19 – Romania has reported 1,318 fresh cases
of SARS-CoV-2 in the past 24 hours, the Strategic Communication Group has
announced. 48 new fatalities have been reported bringing the total death toll to
3,507. Since the beginning of the pandemic Romania has reported a total of
84,468 cases while 37,056 patients have been declared healed. 8,797 people are
presently in home isolation while 30,877 people have been quarantined at home.
497 patients are in intensive care units. 6,589 Romanian nationals abroad have
been confirmed positive, most of them in Germany, Italy and Spain. 126 of these
have died so far. According to the country’s Health Minister Nelu Tataru, there
is no need for additional restrictive measures in Romania as the number of
infections is on a downward trend.

PANDEMIC – Over 24.6 million Covid infections
have been reported around the world with a death toll that exceeds 830 thousand
according to worldometers.info. The larges number of cases has been reported in
the USA and Brazil. Data released by the Johns Hopkins University shows that
the death toll in the USA is presently exceeding 180 thousand. According to
AFP, although the number of infections has been going down in the past weeks,
the country is far from overcoming the medical crisis. Since the beginning of
the pandemic Brazil has registered 3,761,391 infections with an official death
toll of 118,649, coming second after the USA in a ranking of the most affected
countries.

ELECTION – A campaign for the
local election due on September 27th has officially kicked off in
Romania. The election, which was initially scheduled to take place in June, has
been postponed due to the pandemic. Campaign teams and candidates are going to
wear masks during both outdoor and indoor meetings. Indoor meetings will be
attended by 50 people at the most, whereas the number of participants in the
outdoor events should not exceed 100 people.

INS
– On January 1st this year Romania had a resident population of
19,318,000, 96,500 less than in the same period last year – a communiqué issued
by the National Institute for Statistics (INS) shows, confirming the phenomenon
of population aging has deepened. According to the same sources, the main cause
of this demographic slump is the negative population growth as the number of
deceased has exceeded the number of births by 73,630. According to the INS,
Romania continues to be a country with a large number of emigrants, which is
the second cause of this demographic slump.

MEETING – Over
August 27-28 Romania’s Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu is participating in the
informal meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Berlin, held under the EU’s
German presidency. On Thursday, the participants voiced concern over the latest
developments in Belarus following the August 9th election, the
authorities’ abuses against peaceful protesters and the accuses against the
West for its alleged involvement in the events. The Romanian minister stood in
favour of a prompt and rapid EU reaction and for the proper sanctioning of
those involved in the rigged election and in the violent reprisals against the
protesters. High on the meeting’s agenda today are the situation in the Eastern
Mediterranean, the EU-Turkey relations and the geo-political impact of the
Covid-19 pandemic.

(translated by bill)